Commonly-assigned U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0219860, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, discloses unitary wire mesh isolators which are formed by inserting a wire mesh sleeve through a bore in a substrate, e.g., through a bore in a heat shield for a vehicle exhaust system, and then compressing the portions of the sleeve that extend on either side of the substrate into collars larger than the bore so as to trap the wire mesh in place at the bore and form the desired isolator. As detailed in the '860 application, the resulting unitary isolator solves a variety of problems associated with multi-piece isolators, including difficulties arising from assembling multiple components in a manufacturing setting and the problem of separation of the isolator's components during shipping of assembled heat shields to vehicle manufacturers and/or during use of the heat shields.
Because the collars on both sides of the substrate are formed simultaneously in the '860 application, similar forming equipment is needed on each side of the substrate. For many applications, the use of such equipment is entirely acceptable. However, for some applications, only a limited amount of space is available on one side of the substrate. In particular, heat shields often have a concave and a convex side, with the concave side having a limited volume, especially in the region of the bores where the isolators are located.
FIG. 1 shows representative examples of heat shields 7 for vehicle applications, where the bores through the heat shields are shown by the reference number 9. In this figure, isolators 11 have been installed in some of the bores. As is evident from FIG. 1, the volume available for installing an isolator is limited for various of the bore locations. This is especially so for the undersides (concave sides) of bores located near the top of raised sections of a shield. Forming a wire mesh collar in such a limited volume using equipment of the type disclosed in the '860 application can be challenging.
The present invention, in accordance with certain of its aspects, addresses this problem of forming a wire mesh isolator under conditions where the space available for producing the isolator's collar is limited. Both in connection with these aspects and with other aspects, the invention's methods and apparatus seek to simplify the installation of isolators in substrates, as well as to reduce the costs associated therewith.